Pocket Monsters
by Parallel Parker
Summary: Ash Ketchum is grown now, but still has plenty of growing up to do. In his 20s and with no real direction in life, an adventure is about to unfold that will lead Ash to the glamorous sport of pokemon fighting. Read along and follow the adventures of Ash and the gang as he leaves his mundane life behind and becomes entangled in the exploits of a dangerous crime syndicate we all know
1. ASH

"What's your name?" the lady standing behind a reception-type desk said, the golden badge on her pressed dark blue uniform crookedly reflecting the florescent lights hanging above them.

"Ash," he replied dully.

"Ah. Ketchum. Good to see you so chipper this morning." She shuffled through some papers that lay down in front of her and clicked her teeth absent-mindedly.

"Yeah." Ash was keeping it short. His head was pounding from the night before and a pressure had been building up behind his eyes that teetered his levels of irritability. He wiped some of the sleep from his eyes and rubbed the inside of his wrist against his temple, trying to dull the painful persistent thud.

Officer Jenny exhaled with a subtle hint of exasperation. "Please don't do this again, Mr. Ketchum. We've really got better things to do."

"Better things to do than your job?" Ash knew he shouldn't have said it. Sometimes he just couldn't help it. It was too late now, though. Ash lowered his head ever slightly and raised an eyebrow; indignant. Defiant.

"Better things to do than babysit drunk assholes," Officer Jenny spat back, almost, _almost_ losing her cool. She was typically very professional, but she had a short temper for people she felt were wasting her time. "Here's your stuff. Here's your paperwork. Don't miss court."

Ash collected his things from her desk (a backpack, a phone, a wallet, keys, a pack of cigarettes with a grey lighter tucked into its cellophane wrapping, all of it except the backpack sealed in a clear plastic bag) and grabbed the jumble of paperwork that was meant for him. His head was too mushy to muster up any kind of comeback, so he just avoided eye contact with Officer Jenny while he put his belongings into his backpack before strapping it tightly to his shoulders.

As the tinted windows of the automatic doors at the front of the police station separated, the sunlight attacked Ash's eyes, causing the pressure to build up again. He adjusted his cap to shade his eyes, providing a small, albeit helpful, amount of relief to the pain of a hangover and the shame of a night in the drunk tank.

He had had worse nights plenty before, as far being a drunk asshole goes. He at least remembered where his car was this time. And he pretty much had an idea of what had occurred the night previous, as brief glimpses of hazy memory slowly surfaced to his conscious thought, some for long enough for him to grasp and piece together, but most just barely eluding his hold on them.

He had the general idea of it, though. A few too many beers chasing a few too many shots of whiskey. A drunken debate with Gary Oak at the patio of a bar that turned into a pissing match over reasons Ash couldn't quite recall. It escalated, though one could hardly call it a fight. Ash and Gary exchanged a few shoves and got in each other's faces, both refusing to back down on whatever side of whatever debate they were stubbornly defending. The whole event would probably have gone legally unnoticed had a couple of cops not already been very near the area for an unrelated reason, some pokemon acting up on the street or something. They were already short tempered for having to deal with such a nuisance.

"Know-it-all prick," Ash muttered to himself, referring of course to Gary. Gary come out of the whole situation scott-free for knowing somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. Ash and Gary never really liked each other.

Ashed stopped to pull out a pack of cigarettes from his backpack and bang them against his palm before taking one of them out and lighting it, hunching over and using his free hand to shield it from the wind. He took a long drag and removed his cap to scratch his head.

He continued walking through town, now only a couple of blocks away from his car. Ash tried to ignore the faces along the way, faces he knew were judging him for his sloppy appearance and lazy stagger. He smelled of stale cigarettes and alcohol, disheveled and untucked. He looked like shit and his body felt even worse.

He arrived at his car, a grey (or silver, when he ever got around to washing it) mid-sized sedan, a few years old, but in decent enough shape. Ash noticed a growlithe standing near his car. The pokemon was filthy. Dry mud matted its thick paws, paws and legs and a body that were thick like a puppy's. But this 'puppy' was the size of a medium-sized adult dog, even malnourished. The body was covered with a dirty orange fur with some black stripes running across its back. The growlithe's tail was a large tuft of cream-colored fur, a color which traced upward along the belly and to his chest, where the cream colored fur thickened into a mane of sorts.

The growlithe began pissing on his left rear tire.

"Goddammit!" Ash said to himself before directing his frustration toward the dog. "Get! _Get!_ " The growlithe retreated to a safe distance and growled at Ash for his curtness. Small tendrils of smoke curled out of its nose. "Fucking strays," Ash said under his breath as he fumbled with his keys. Most growlithe owners opted to have a surgery performed on the dog that removes the combustion-glands it uses to produce fire deep within its throat. This is for safety reasons, of course, and some regions have even passed laws to make such type of surgeries mandatory. This stray would do no harm, though. Without rigorous training, the fire from a growlithe's throat is hardly enough to burn anything other than dry tinder. Flames are mostly just for show, a way for growlithes to determine amongst themselves the identity of the alpha.

The growlithe flinched and let out another small growl at the sound of the car engine starting before scampering off in search of something else to piss on.

Ash got in his car and reached at some sunglasses that were on his passenger seat when he noticed a piece of paper folded and tucked under his windshield wiper. He had a feeling that it wasn't a promo flyer for a dance club or a notice for a shitty local band playing at some dive-bar in town. He pressed the button to roll down the window and flipped his wiper on. The wiper squealed across the dry window and dragged the folded paper with it so that Ash could just reach out of his car window and grab it. He opened it up and cursed. A parking ticket. A fucking parking ticket. Ash crumpled up the citation and threw it on the floorboard of the passenger side of the car, where it found its new home nestled between empty packs of cigarettes and paper bags full of fast-food trash.

"Shit," he said, eyes closed and head leaning back against the seat. He took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh before taking off towards his apartment.


	2. BROCK

A beam of sun cut through a crack in the black window drapes on the eastern window of a second-story apartment. The blade of light slowly drifted across the floor and wall and up the bed until it reached Brock's eyelids, rousing him from sleep.

Brock made a fist with his left hand and used it to rub his eyes; his other arm was pinned beneath the small frame of an attractive young brunette wearing nothing but a silk sheet. She laid motionless with her head on Brock's shoulder and her hand on his chest.

He nudged her softly, and after seeing no signs that the movement had disturbed her sleep, he held his breath and slid his arm out from under her, carefully removing her hand from his chest and pausing briefly, only once, when he thought she might have awoken.

As he put his feet on the carpeted floor, he felt her body shift and looked at her in time to see her roll over and nestle into the neck of her pillow. He wished he could spend more time admiring the soft curve of her back and the way that the thin blade of light traced it along up to her gentle shoulders. He had to gather his things, though.

His boxers lay on the ground by his feet, so he flipped them right-side-out and pulled them on. He slid off the bed and tiptoed around the room looking for his things. A shoe here, a shirt there. Pants. Socks. His. Hers. Other than the personal effects strewn about the room, it was fairly well kept. It reflected the girl to whom it belonged well. Neat, organized, yet full of passion.

Brock put his clothes on as he found them, continuing to move quietly so as not to wake the girl. Once he made sure that he wouldn't be leaving anything behind, he crept over to her side of the bed and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. He was really quite fond of the girl, especially for only having known her for a single evening. He closed the bedroom door behind him gently and made his way to the front door.

An eevee that was curled up on the sofa met eyes with Brock and let out a yawn. Brock couldn't resist; he walked over to it and began to pet it softly on the head. It's fur was plush and tan, its mane white and soft. Brock scratched lightly behind its long pointed ears, and it licked his hand with a rough pink tongue to return the affection. Brock turned toward the door and the eevee leapt from the sofa gracefully to weave in and out between his legs, brushing against him and flickering its tail slowly. It let out a mew and a soft whine.

"I'll miss you too, girl," Brock said, crouching down and stroking the soft white fur around the eevee's neck. When Brock made to stand, the eevee took a step back from him, looked back toward the hallway where the girl slept, and then looked at Brock, tilting its head softly to one side. "Yeah." Brock looked down towards the hallway. "You're probably right."

He walked toward a glass and steel-framed desk by the other sofa and pulled a blank sheet of paper off of a stack on top. He grabbed a pen from a cup on the desk and scribbled a note as the eevee continued brushing against his legs.

 _I had a great time last night. You were amazing, and your eevee has_

 _a beautiful coat._

\- _Brock_

The girl in the silk sheet had been bragging about her eevee's coat the night before, so his

comment wasn't entirely out of context. He did, however, hope it might distract her from the fact that he left no way for her to get in contact with him. Brock always liked to leave a note if he could, though. It didn't feel right sharing a night with a woman and then mysteriously disappearing forever.

Brock closed the front door and walked down the apartment stairs toward his SUV on the side of the street, smiling the whole time. He checked his watch and decided he still had time to go home and shower before work.

He went home quickly, showered, dressed, and brushed his teeth before he began his commute. He listened to about 20 minutes worth of radio, cycling through pokemon related programs in between commercials. Talk show hosts discussed proper diet and nutrition for grass type pokemon and (more interestingly to Brock) how to best care for the rock type pokemon _geodude_ when it sheds its outer crust, a geobiological event that occurs about every 5 or 6 years when the rocky growth inside becomes too large for the outer crust to contain. Brock also made a quick stop to pick up some breakfast for his co-workers.

He arrived at the pokemon shelter about ten minutes late, but that wasn't a sin that a box of doughnuts couldn't absolve.

"Good morning, ladies!" Brock said a little enthusiastically to the receptionist Beth. Beth was a little younger than Brock, friendly and good natured. She eyed Brock suspiciously.

"What?" Brock asked, pretend puzzled.

Beth pointed at him from behind her desk and let slip a sneaky, teasing smile. "You had sex last night, didn't you?"

"Who, me? No. Wait, what?" Brock was flustered, but not nearly as much as he was letting on. Sometimes he liked to put on a little for the theatrics.

"Oh my god!" Beth laughed. "You did!"

"You know you're the only one for me, Beth." Brock might have even sounded convincing if she didn't know any better. But she knew way better.

"You're so full of shit," Beth laughed again and reached for a doughnut.

"What gave it away?" Brock asked.

Beth took a bite from a piece she tore off of the doughnut. "These," she said thickly through a mouthful of fried dough and icing, followed by an exaggerated wink. Brock was thinking how much he enjoyed having coworkers he could be silly with as she swallowed her bite and daintily wiped pink icing from the corners of her mouth with a small napkin. "Plus," she continued, speaking clearly now, "you've got that _look_. That _walk_. Who was she?"

"A really nice girl I met at a coffee shop." Brock thought about the sliver of light that traced along her back earlier that morning. "She has an amazing eevee. Cute as hell."

"You'd think the cute girls would have learned better by now", Beth said pretending to ignore him and fake-typing at her computer.

"Actually I was talking about the eevee. But the girl was alright, nowhere near as cute as you though." Brock smiled and Beth rolled her eyes.

"Is that Brock?" a woman's voice called from a nearby hallway before a blonde friendly looking woman in her mid-30s appeared from it.

"Tina! Doughnut?" Brock held the box of pastries open toward Tina, one of his favorite supervisors, who was usually in a bubbly mood.

"Just half, Tina said, "I'm on a diet."

"I don't see why," Brock replied with a wry smile.

"Oh, you!" Tina said playfully as she tore a doughnut in two pieces and put the smaller of them back in the box. "You're list is hanging by the door."

"I'll get to it, then," Brock said, leaving the box of doughnuts on the front counter. He walked down the hallway Tina had come from and grabbed an apron hanging from a hook near the door to the yard and kennels behind the shelter. Brock was about to start his day keeping the kennel and nursing abandoned pokemon back to health and teaching them the skills they would need to survive if they could be released into the wild.

Brock tied the apron behind his back, and as he looked at the list of his chores his smile disappeared. That _look_ , the one Beth was talking about. That _walk_. Everything that he was feeling that morning suddenly left him.

There were a few pokemon to be washed, a couple of neuter-like procedures he would assist with, an interview with a potential adopter, and a pokemon to be euthanized.


End file.
